Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

Ruth Winston-Jones, 36, claims doctors should have done more to help her
son stay alive instead of allowing him to die on November 12, 2004.

"Luke might be alive today if the doctors had made an effort to
resuscitate him," she said. "This isn't about money, it's about getting justice
for my son."

"The last year has been horrific, I can't believe they let my baby die."

Shortly after Luke was born, doctors predicted that he would live just a
few days when they diagnosed him with three holes in his heart and with
Edward's syndrome, also known as "trisomy 18". Many experts say that babies
with the rare genetic condition usually die before reaching their first
birthday.

Luke died just three weeks after the High Court Family Division ruled
that doctors at the hospital could refuse to resuscitate him if he stopped
breathing.

Many hospitals, doctors, and medical attorneys have maintained in recent
years that resuscitating or keeping patients with severe disabilities or
chronic medical conditions on life support for long periods of time seriously
impacts the patients' "quality of life". Several disability rights groups, and
other advocates in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, have argued that hospitals
and doctors should not be the ones to judge the value of patients lives.

The High Court's decision was based in part on another court decision
which allowed doctors to refuse a ventilator for Charlotte Wyatt, who was born
three months premature, if she stopped breathing. Charlotte, now two years old,
has improved to the point where the court last month reversed that order. Last
week she went home for the first time for a two-hour visit.

The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center,the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.